Denice W. Ross is the Director of Federal Data Policy at the Federation of American Scientists where she is catalyzing the field of government data policy. This includes collaborating with other federal data watchers to build digital civic infrastructure like 1) dataindex.us, the go-to resource that helps data stakeholders keep up on the health of their favorite datasets and give federal agencies feedback when policy windows open, and 2) essentialdata.us, a robust collection of 100+ use cases describe how specific federal datasets benefit American lives and livelihoods. Denice is a seasoned organizer of diverse data colleagues across civil society, academia, tech companies, and all levels of government. Most recently, she served as the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer and as the U.S. Chief Data Scientist, where she led the charge to use disaggregated data to drive better outcomes for all Americans. Denice’s 25-year career using data to serve the public interest has spanned federal and local government, academia, and the nonprofit sector plus domains ranging from climate to policing.
When a hurricane hits, it’s all hands on deck – that goes for federal data, too. Pulling back from our investments in timely, accurate, and accessible public data will only make us less prepared and put us all at greater risk.
As federal data policy nerds, the question we get asked all the time is “How much data has the current administration terminated?”
Federal data is a diverse ecosystem with well over 500,000 datasets – including those tackling Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
Datasets and variables that do not align with Administration priorities, or might reflect poorly on Administration policy impacts, seem to be especially in the cross-hairs.
As the former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, I know first-hand how valuable and vulnerable our nation’s federal data assets are. Like many things in life, we’ve been taking our data for granted and will miss it terribly when it’s gone.